MGOBLOG 3.0 sticky for bugs

We are using this thread to collect all the (fixable) feedback for the new site in one spot, and if you're seeing it on the main page it means I've updated the OP content.

If you've noticed any bugs in the site post them here and if you have constructive criticism we very much appreciate it. The developers are also going to be in this thread. Even if we can't always respond, you're being heard.

UPDATE 8/23/2018:

We met at HUEL HQ today and worked through a lot of things.

THINGS THAT GOT FIXED

1. You are now able to edit your account info (and your avatar) by clicking on your account name while logged in. Eventually your history and more (see below) will be tabbed from a single user page but this was the quick fix for now.

2. The points issue is still the top priority that they're working on. We're one step further and testing a possible fix in a test environment right now.

3. Next week or so we'll have the ability to vote on Diaries and Board posts (the OPs) themselves. Could have launched today but we wanted to move it from where they were appearing but it works on the dev environment.

THINGS WE ARE FIXING

Please note that while this is a priority tree it's not necessarily the order things will get fixed. We have multiple developers who have their different skills and as each comes free from a project they grab the next highest one they can handle.

1. Points problems

The issue seems to be in the module we wrote for counting points:

Now that they've narrowed it down we have high hopes of getting to the root of the situation.

Lastly IF YOUR POINTS WERE RESET TO ZERO please post in here and let us know 1) A little bit about your points history, 2) When you lost them (was it during the transition), and anything else that can help us track down whatever behavior is creating this. We can't fix this because we don't know why or to what class it's happening to.

(new) 2. User permission issues.

So right now at 100 points you should be able to vote and post new threads, and at 500 points you should be able to post diaries and edit wikis.

THIS IS NOT WORKING because of an issue with the core module. We are trying a fix that might make everything work right away.

It's a permissions issue. What's supposed to happen is once you hit a points threshold you are automatically bumped up to the next user level. It's not doing the bumping because of the "Actions" module, which comes with Drupal. Now that we've identified where the problem is we're working on a patch.

2. Embedding youtubes and tweets automatically by posting a link

So because of site security we have to use Oembeds. There is a module for Drupal 8 for this but it's a paid service, which with our volume is cost-prohibitive (like they want tens of thousands of dollars per month so screw those guys).

So we're going to develop something. We would prefer to have a system that automatically turns a link you post into an image or youtube or twitter embed. That's a better long-term solution and putting something in place in the meantime would cost us time and resources we'd rather put toward more permanent changes. It's a high priority so we just ask for patience now to be paid off with a better final product than the old site had.

For now you can still post these with regular html tags and most sites will give you the source code if you can't remember how to write <img> tags in html language. We had the option to change the post-a-picture box in the comment editor with the ability to post a link instead of upload an image to our site, but we didn't want to lose that ability to post to our site since it's a feature we really wanted for the new site.

3. Side rail becoming unglued.

I've seen it and several users have as well but we haven't had a developer get into it yet because it doesn't happen too often.

4. "Continue Reading" links on front page will jump to the break tag, not the top of the article.

Another thing on the list for a dev to get to.

5. Comments bubble should link to comments

Right now it goes to the top of the article in article view.

6. Voting shows totals not aggregate

We have to rewrite the module ourselves.

7. (new) Latest post timestamp behavior

Haven't looked into it yet but it's a known issue that the latest post says there's something from a few minutes ago and there isn't. It may be bots causing this behavior.

8. (new) Clicking on a comment in a readers' post history should take you to that post.

Moderators need this.

9. (new) Some content is breaking containers

Design issue. When designer gets back from maternity leave we'll get an estimate.

10. (new) We are developing a "User Page" that will be tabbed thusly:

Change your user info (name, email, avatar, password)

See your recent post history

See replies to your posts

Your points history

Most excited about the second-to-last one, which is one of many new properties we plan to add that the old site missed.

Things Over the Horizon

1. Showing New comments in a thread as "New"

We got an estimate of big money to rent a specialist in order to build out this module. This is the next big project after we get the points figured out. Personally I wanted to address it sooner but more people complained about points so that got moved ahead. Be mad at the people who complained about points because it's all their fault.

2. Changing Scroll Behavior

We had a specialist look at this and what's happening is a problem with the order things are loaded. When you post a new comment the page DOES take you to your just-posted comment, but then it loads other comments and that pushes your screen down. If you use the up or down arrows it should take you right back to your comment. This is a problem buried deep and got another big expensive estimate to fix. So we have to wait.

(updated) 3. Apps

The process has begun. We might have a couple of light ones first then more developed ones later. FYI the problem with the old apps is they were not built to play nice with the site. If they worked great on your phone that was because they were downloading the whole site before you went to read it, and that was placing a huge drain on our resources and causing the site crashes. We will have apps and I hope to have a timeline in a few weeks. The latest is there's a drupal module we're going to try. Maybe it'll work the first time with no kinks.

(updated) 4. Saving User Preferences

We want comment settings to stick permanently for each user. Right now it resets when you post a comment. This is a BIG fix so it comes after we get other things done.

Also they're working on a bunch of functions we need internally, like the process for creating breaks, windows live writer issues, and lightbox for UFRs.

This may or may not have to do with my computer/browser, but for some reason I'm still be redirected to the magical troll version of the site when I type in "mgoblog.com". If anybody can help, that'd be great. I'm sick of looking at that monstrosity.

I've been inserting photos in posts by clicking on the Imce File Manager icon above and adding images that have been downloaded to my computer. In the Imce File Manager Message Box that pops up when you click on the icon, each image that's added from the photos file on my computer gets listed in the menu to be selected and then added to appear in the post.

Because I'd added many photos to my posts after discovering how to do it, tonight I started to delete all of those photos from the Imce File Manager list. Little did I know that by selecting each photo and clicking on Delete, all of those photos would be deleted from posts that I'd made.

If you post multiple times in a thread, you will see the progression of points you've gained via upvoting throughout your postings.

For example, I posted three times in the Jeff George thread. As of 8:43am, my first post shows my point total as 17455. Scroll down a bit and my second post shows my point total as 17457. My third post shows a point total of 17458.

However, when you click on my username it shows my current point total is 17457 as does the "Welcome MH20" section when I scroll to the very top of the page.

The points system is a module written by a guy who doesn't put much work into it (on the old site we used a different and better one but that's discontinued). So we're paying to have a new module written but it wasn't going to be ready with the site. For the time being points are counted but they don't appear right away.

the only issues i'm having (windows 10/Chrome/Avira antivirus) are scaling/spacing issues like the guy above mentioned. lots of white space and text rolling over to the next line kind of issues that can be fixed as the guy pointed out with his screen grabs. things like that can be tightened up.

oddly enough the site looks great on my Samsung Galaxy 5 using Chrome. it takes an extra step to get to the board from the main page but going through a menu isn't a big deal and i set up a second desktop link in chrome to go directly to the board. loved having the basic android app but understand it never brought revenue to the site.

posting is easy from my laptop. haven't tried from my phone. wish there was an edit feature but i'm sure that will come eventually or people will start using the preview feature more.

I've figured out photos and gifs. an extra couple of steps initially to get the photos/gif uploaded but then you have a library to pull from in the future which is nice.

One of the pre-launch musts on my list was embedding tweets, videos from youtube, and gifs from the WYSIWYG. When we went to do this, the module for this version wanted a bazillion dollars a month for our readership size. So we're looking at ways to build that in-house. For now posting into the source code works.

Most posters are lurkers who care more about longform content than the board. But I think shortening the diaries area is a good idea.

The voting isn't behaving like it's supposed to. I mentioned it lower down there's a module problem. I just checked the setting again after I posted that comment and voting should tally in realtime. Known bug, not the top bug right now.

Comments jump: noted, added to list

I just went in to see if I could enable editing posts and there's no intermediate option like we used to have. We don't want readers editing posts after they're replied to and there's a security issue in turning that on so this might take awhile to fix.

Ironic considering we aped a lot from SBNation.

Eventually background will be a thing. It's going to take a big design tweak to not make that look bad (we tried it and were like "CHANGE IT BACK CHANGE IT BACK" so that's another thing lower down the list.

How so: weird?

Don't forget.

In general understand we were on Drupal 6 before, and were on that for a decade, so a lot of things got tweaked just how we want them, and a lot of functions you took for granted were written by some geek in 2007 and never picked up again. We HAD to get off Drupal 6 because the site wasn't going to be able to stay up much longer and nothing was supported anymore. I remember being around in 2008 when we went to 2.0--a stable site with everything working doesn't happen quickly.

I replied to you too early, because THIS is the communication we've been hoping for. I wish you weren't alone in responding, but thanks for doing so - it will lead to a lot of goodwill and more patience while things get sorted out.

I'm a little confused by your comment that "most posters are lurkers," I assume you mean most visitors are lurkers.

While that may be true that the majority of visitors don't post I question the statement that most lurkers prefer longform content. Consider the math of posting. Mgoblog typically adds only 1 or 2 longform posts per weekday including diaries. Rarely is longform content posted on the weekend. There are between 5 and 10 board posts added each day including weekends.

That means there are between 5 and 10 longform posts each week vs. 35 to 70 board posts. Multiply those numbers by the comments they generate and it would seem the Message Board promotes significantly more engagement and more frequent visits.

Therefore visitors seeking longform content need only visit the site once or twice each day and not come on the weekends to read all the content they want. I suspect those reading the Message Board posts visit 10 or more times per day including weekends.

Combine all of those assumptions with the fact that new diaries are only added about once or twice per week and it would seem clear the Message Board should be more prioritized on the site.

I appreciate the longform posts and the content on this site dwarfs ANYTHING ELSE out there. I came here because the writing and analysis are absolutely fantastic - every time I login I hope that there’s a new longform post from Brian, Ace, etc. - but I stay for the threads and interaction on the board with other fans. In fact, I think like most regular MGoBoard junkies, there are users whose comments, ideas and takes on any given issue are appreciated just as much as the guys who run the board. The Board is the anchor of this site and gives it a character and feeling of community that makes this site more than the sum of its content. This may have started out as Brian’s “baby” but it has evolved into more than that because of all of us who visit here regularly.

So yeah, prioritize the crap out of the board and commenting experience. That’s the lifeblood of the site. Everything else is just details.

I consider myself a lurker. I can probably count the number of original board posts I've started over the last ten years on one hand.

I can tell you I visited 2.0 dozens of times throughout the day every day, and I spent the vast majority of my time reading board posts and ensuing discussions. Any time I got bored sitting on the couch, in a meeting, or while out and about, I would open the app and check the board. Like, whenever I had a spare moment, that's what I would do. Not even really feasible anymore unfortunately.

Yes, front-page content is great, and it's what got me coming here in the first place. But I primarily engage with this place on the board, and it's not a close call. Diaries are updated so infrequently that they primarily just get a glance to see if anything new and interesting has popped up. If I ever clicked on "Diaries" in the app though, it was an accident.

Literally, the first thing I used to do every morning was grab my phone, tap the app icon, tap MGoBoard, and swipe down to refresh. Now, I'll open the site at some point in the morning after I've gotten settled in at the office.

2. On the old site, when you clicked on the link for the "jump" in an article, it would take you to an anchor within the document, so when the article loaded, you were already at the jump. Now it's taking you to the top of the article, so you have to scroll past the part you already read.

Hey, Seth, thanks for the sticky. I'm on MacOS w/ Safari, and entering text in the search box at upper right results in text that is not vertically centered in the text box, but is below the text box, and therefore invisible. In the screen cap below, "asdf" is entered in the search box. This behavior is present whether the header is short or expanded, and is independent of the width of the Safari window.

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More generally, I have always preferred to read MGoBlog on the computer. 3.0 looks quite good on my phone, but the whitespace, fonts/font sizes, image sizes relative to fonts, header font sizes relative to body text, and un-bordered white background need tweaking on the computer.

They do! Being a cool Michigan blog already won us some fandom when we'd come by, but going to a Geocities site for 2 days made us legends among the marketing department, who will now do anything we ask.

I might be in the minority but I miss the links to other Michigan sites. It may seem counterintuitive to promote competing sites but it meant I always came to Mgoblog first. You became the star of the Michigan galaxy rather than just another planet in it.

Seth - Great to see this thread. To be blunt I think you guys were caught very flat-footed as to just how much the user experience degraded in 3.0. Please go back and review every post since 3.0 came out as there was much constructive criticism given from the very beginning. You will have a long list to work from, but seriously man, it is much less fun to come here than it used to be.

As Don Canham once said: don't turn a one week story into a three month story. Or something like that. You have some serious but obvious work ahead to make this place enjoyable again. Some mea culpa's and humble pie are probably advised too. I look forward to you guys getting it done, but it is not just "change" that people are reacting too, it is new hassle and way too much scrolling/clicks/whatever to see and engage opinion.

One specific request from me is show both upvotes and downvotes again, not just the net total. Also allow editing of the posts. Also fix the spellcheck to provide options or go back to see no evil. Thanks.

One I haven't seen posted yet: The RSS feed now seems to include (a snapshot of) the comments. I'd like to see the old format, where it just included all of the content, and I'd click through to get the comments and some embedded images that don't display when read via a newsreader. I'd accept "what other websites do," which would be "just the content before the jump," as a way to increase clickthrough and sell more ad impressions. But delivering the comments really messes up my news feed. :)

I want the "New" back too. I'm looking all over in the site configuration and I can't find it, which means it was a module or I suck at finding it. It's not high enough on the priority list yet that I can waste the programmers' time with it.

Being able to access profiles is something we're trying to add back once our security is strong enough. It's going to happen whenever the guy assigned to it gets back and says the problem is solved.

Another option I can't find in the site config and that was a module in Drupal 6.0. On the list, not high on the list.

Seth, for the most part the prioritization that you have laid out in this thread makes sense. But I humbly suggest that easily identifying "new" posts be moved up higher on the priority list. It's a big deal for me and I have seen others mention it as well. I used to stop by a lot to see what new posts there are on a thread I was interested in; now, not so much because it's too time-consuming to tell what's new (other than scroll to the end). That's got to be significantly hurting your traffic.

Not sure if this is my browser settings, or adjustments being made by the development team, but it seems the format of the front page is different each time I visit the website. The variations I have noticed are:

Tiles aligned horizontally across the page. Each tile with a corresponding title to the blog post.

No tiles, but instead large pictures from the post, with just the title of the post below the picture.

A smaller picture from the post, with the first paragraph or so from the post appearing on the front page.

I have tried resizing my browser and haven't noticed any changes when doing that. I am using Chrome on Windows 8.

FYI, to add more detail to this: when I posted the previous comment, there were 4 image tiles across the top of the page, with the post titles bottom aligned with the tiles. Below the tiles were additional front-page articles.

Now, there are no tiles, and the layout is large thumbnail images with some article text below the image.

Again, not really a huge issue, but just confusing as to why it changes.